As I posted in another post yesterday, I tried out some of the MM acrylic paint in Gunship Gray to see how it performed since I have heard such mixed reviews of it. The test subject was the two fuselage halves of an old Revell 1/32 scale F4U Corsair that I have had since I was a kid and never built, so I thought it would make a good test subject being that it was fairly big to see the results.
All I did for prepping the plastic was to wipe it down with some Poly S Plastic Prep on a paper towel and then I used the airbrush to air dry it.
I mixed the MM acrylic in a 2:1 ratio of paint to thinner with regular tap water and shot it through my Omni 4000 at 14 psi and then at 20 psi and it sprayed beautifully. [:0]
I thought this stuff sprayed terribly from what I have read? Interesting. [%-)]
The temperature in my garage was 60 degrees and the weather was typical here for CA this time of year.
I thought I would try this paint with a different thinner also so I emptied the color cup and mixed a little more in a 2:1 ration with 70% Isopropyl Alcohol and it sprayed the same as the tap water. I had no specks in the paint and the color was even and smooth.
It is now only 24 hours later and I put some regular cheap Frostking brand masking tape across several different areas of the parts I painted and rubbed the tape down really good with my finger to burnish it somewhat. Despite my best efforts I could not get any paint to lift. [8D]
Now I am wondering why I had such good results with it.
Did the Poly S Plastic Prep make the paint adhere better?
Is the Gunship Gray just one of those colors that adheres well and sprays well?
well, ive thinned mine with everything under the sun with the same results, terrible. it may be the humidity but it dont seem to affect the tamiya. how were you holding your mouth? Was your tongue doing the michael jordan thing? who knows man, im still not gonna buy anymore of it. maybe your one of the chosen few that it works for. try some more colors, it may be the color. like i say, the only color that worked well in my paache H was mm acryl interior green, and intermediate blue from polyscale and both were thinned with distilled water. later
Thanks Saltydog.
Since you and Chris both had problems and you are both in the same southern region of the U.S. where it is real humid at times, I am wondering if that is the factor? Is it humid there now?
mike…its south alabama ok…nuff said! we have about 14 days out of the year (scattered through out fall and winter mainly) where the humidity may drop below 50%. later. well everybody, this proves one more point, tamiya is an all weather paint! roooooooooollllllllllllllll tide fellows!
That wasn’t a shot at the people spraying these paints, it was more of a joke since I have heard several people on this forum who don’t like them and some of them are veteran modelers. I believe Greg (Plasticmod992) also made a comment that he didn’t like them, but I believe that was a tip dry complaint which I am so used to it doesn’t bother me.
When I airbrush with Createx or Aqua Flow T-shirt paints I wipe the needle with my fingernails about once every couple of minutes out of habit.
Actually we have fairly high humidity here too but it doesn’t feel humid.
Right now the weather on my home page for this internet service says that the humidity here in Hayward, CA is 93% right now at 50 degrees F.
Go down and visit Florida and Alabama at 93% humidity and you can’t breath, especially in the summer months. [xx(]
Since it is that high of humidity here then maybe that is not the factor in these paints not working well for some. [%-)]
Relative humidy is a measure of the amount of water in the air divided by the amount of water the air can hold for a given temperature. At 50 degrees F, the air can’t hold much water so it will have a high relative humidy but with very little water content. When that air goes into your body it heats up so the relative humidy drops down.
Are you airbrushing outdoors or indoors? In indoors then the relative humidy is much much lower than the one given for the air outdoors. Maybe you can try it outdoors and see what the results is, but then you got two variables to play with, humidity and temperature.
I’m glad you’ve gotten good results. I’ve had similar good luck with two caveats: (1) I find that if I prime the surface of the model with an enamel, the MM Acryl lays down better, and (2) I do not thin very much; maybe a 3 or 4:1 ration of paint to thinner. I use the MM thinner.
Even with that, the paint does not cover up the detail, even at 1/72 scale, and it seems to shrink a bit as it dries.
I’ve not had trouble with masking either.
I live in PA, where it gets pretty humid, but I airbrush indoors.
Just to add fuel to the humidity fire, I live in Denver, where the air is so thin, the birds have to walk. Also, very, very, dry air here. Maybe that’s why I never have any problem with any paint that I spray. Even at 40 degrees (F), or sometimes even less, in my garage, I’ve sprayed everything EXCEPT Tamiya with no problems (which means that I have never used Tamiya).
I don’t even have a water trap on my compressor. I had one in the air line in my cabinet shop and it was always dry.
I live in southern ILL and I use only MM paints and never had any problems at all. Airbrushed or brused on. Well there was that one time when I dumped the bottle of Flat black over and it ran over the model I was working on [:(]
I wonder if the Poly S Plastic Prep I used has something to do with aiding the adhesion of the acrylic paint? Have you people that had trouble with MM acrylics tried the Plastic Prep before painting?
I went and bought two more bottles of Model Master Acrylic tonight to try and see if I just had good results with that Gunship Gray color.
I bought flat black and flat white this time and I will try them and let you all know if I have the same success with them.
I tried the flat white last night and it was much tougher to spray than the gunship gray was, but then again white has always been known as one of the toughest colors to spray well, along with yellow.
I tried it mixed 2:1 with tap water and it seemed to not cover well even though I had good success with the gunship gray and that mixture.
I then tried spraying the flat white straight from the bottle and it came out better.
I don’t know how well the adhesion will be as I will test that later tonight and see.
It was a little cold at 54 degrees in the garage for painting, but it was only 60 degrees when I had the success with the gunship gray so maybe that isn’t too cold.
I also shot the flat black straight from the bottle and it went on fairly well also, but the one thing I don’t like about it is that the black color is not really that “black” if you know what I mean.
It appears more along the lines of dark gray mixed with black instead of having that deep black color like the Model Master flat black enamel does.
I mixed the bottle well before spraying also so that is not the problem.
I’ve painted 18 models this year and everyone was done with MM Acryl or Tamiya. Absolutely no complaints from my Badger 150 or me other than finding the volume of paint at the LHS or color colors I need. I have had a little trouble with paint buildup on the tips but what can you expect if you don’t flush or clean the tip from time to time. Personally, it’s hard to beat water clean-up of the A brush and when I do get a little heavy handed, tap water repairs the boo-boo’s. Here in West Tennessee it’s pretty humid even in the winter months. All my painting is done indoors so temp is not an issue.
Glad to see your post reference the MM Acryl paints. I was wondering if you plan on doing more testing using the Acryl “fine-line” thinner to check its performance. I have a few new bottles of the Acryl; flat black, Gunship grey and white that I will test with you and compare results. I was glad to see that you had good results with 70% alocohol and tap water, I was curious about using regular tap versus distiled water. As you had acurately recalled, tip-dry is a big pet peeve with me, especially when trying to spray fine lines for an intricate camo-scheme[banghead]. You got me very curious about your Omni airbrush(s) as I am in the mood to buy and try one, what size is the needle/nozzle on your 4000?
Well I’ll get back to you and the gang and share my spray testing results. Hey MikeV can you mention what cleaners work best for you. A little info on my tools for the tests:
I am glad to see this topic MikeV as I am soon to begin painting my Texan with the MM Acryl Insignia Yellow (the other dreaded color)-- I primed the plane with Gloss White-- so now-- should I use thinnned yellow-- or straight from the bottle?? It does seem thin…